


Married Life

by rosecat13



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: M/M, Married Life, Monologuing, cecilos - Freeform, married
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-28
Updated: 2014-04-28
Packaged: 2018-01-21 02:59:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1535054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosecat13/pseuds/rosecat13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being married is hard.<br/>It’s hard because they drop plates and glasses sometimes, and because Cecil sometimes comes home looking like he works on the set of a B-rate gore slasher film, not in a calm radio station in his sage and lavender scented booth. And the scent is pretty questionable, especially when Carlos finds a piece of flesh that he can later identify as “eel skin” and Cecil shrugs with a sad smile, and Carlos hugs him, because working at the station is hard too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Married Life

**Author's Note:**

> @NightValeSciFi and @Actual_Cecil from Twittervale, inspired. Congrats on the engagement <3

Being married is hard.

It’s hard because they drop plates and glasses sometimes, and because Cecil sometimes comes home looking like he works on the set of a B-rate gore slasher film, not in a calm radio station in his sage and lavender scented booth. And the scent is pretty questionable, especially when Carlos finds a piece of flesh that he can later identify as “eel skin” and Cecil shrugs with a sad smile, and Carlos hugs him, because working at the station is hard too.

It’s hard when money isn’t really so much of a necessity as a nuisance, and Carlos feels guilty for asking for this and that, because the grant funding ran out a long time ago and he doesn’t want to feel like a gold digger. Because all he has is Cecil, and sure there’s some rumors being thrown around town that one of the reasons Carlos said yes (he asked in the first place, so why does that rumor even EXIST) is because he had moths in his pockets, and little else. And that pretty bleached lab coat, good dental work, and a head of luscious hair didn’t work on everyone. Because he couldn’t woo the mayor into funding his “whims” that way. They weren’t whims, they were theories, things that needed to be looked into, and it was hard because next to no one really understood.

And it’s hard because their adopted daughter works away from home in the army and they only see her when she feels like showing up. And it’s harder when the times where she shows up just so happen to be when Carlos has pulled on the thigh highs that feel like gossamer and lacy things with pretty trim. And then he has to dive into the bedroom and change while Cecil makes small talk with her in the living room with its humming antique television and slightly worn down couch, and tells her how proud of her he is, because being the leader of an army is a hard job. But Tamika’s tough, she’s all snarl and snarled hair. But it’s hard, still. They all know that it’s hard.

But it’s hardest when Carlos can’t sleep and the blackout curtains have been tugged away (mysteriously. Always so mysteriously) and he sees Cecil’s body highlighted in a dark combination of moonlight and void, and he knows that nothing he will see behind his eyelids will ever compare. But his reality is better than his dreams now, and endless rows of flasks, bubbling with viscous liquids unknown, could not be any more radiant than the hair on the pillow, the soft ebb and flow of the man’s breath. Laced with toothpaste. Carlos has found the thing in life that he wanted most, but it wasn’t the thing that he had thought he wanted. It’s hard because he wants to much not to fall into cliché, he had always worked so diligently not to fall into the four walls: that stereotypical box of “love above all else”.

And then, in the moonlight, he reaches out his fingers, tracing along the bioluminescent turquoise and lavender freckles that trail over his husband’s pale, scarred skin. The splotches, the raised patches of welts, the slightly red marks that will never fade. Long, thin lines of white scar tissue jutting from his flesh. His marks, well-won from years of survival. Years of living in such a dangerous place, and Carlos feels the scar on his chest from miniature explosives seem to go warm in a sort of call-and-response. He’s been touched by Night Vale, too. He was touched, a long time ago.

There is silence everywhere. Like the world decided to stop breathing, and maybe it did, as Carlos traces the crescent-moon white tips of Cecil’s long fingernails, some chipped or cracked, some painted with little purple flowers that the man had done himself in his free time. His husband’s breathing stands out against the air, and Carlos can feel it against his cheek in the queen sized bed. The duvet is deep blues and the pillows are sage green, and they’re both not as soft as Cecil’s embrace, but they do fine, when he’s asleep. He wants to kiss him. But he’s dreaming, he’s far-off now. It’s hard, sometimes, being alone with Cecil right there next to him.

“The sands are cold,” Cecil intones. His voice is soft, sleepy. But as always he’s very clear, he sounds wholly convinced of what he’s saying. Carlos lets his hand rest against his lover’s hip, and listens to Cecil’s dream as the man reports it. “The grains are hard against my skin, listeners, hard like glass. They don’t seem to be cutting me, which I am grateful for. After all, this is my first time out in the field in a long while, and my husband Carlos, you know, the perfectly imperfect married scientist who Just So Happens to be married to the one and only me, would throw an absolute fit if I came home all cut up.”  
  
Carlos doesn’t try to stifle his chuckle. Cecil’s habit of reporting in his sleep was… comforting. The scientific insomniac didn’t mind a bit, watching how the light blonde eyebrows furrowed and raised. Cecil went to other worlds when he slept, and whether or not it was more literal or not, Carlos had no idea. But he’s been listening to Cecil travel all around the world for months, now. Ever since he had started sleeping at his house. In his bed. Their bed, now. And it made it a lot harder to sleep, when your lover kept telling you about the majesty of marred flesh, dark obelisks, or a crazed, raving madman occasionally, but it also helped the scientist feel a lot less lonely. Cecil’s gift had always been his voice.

“M? Did I wake you?” Cecil’s eyes were always mesmerizing. They were deep and always made you feel like you were endlessly falling.

“No, no.” Carlos rubs his side gently, and Cecil blinks, and relaxes. “You were reporting in your sleep again. I’ve been awake… I just like listening. You know how I am.”

“I do,” the reporter smiles. Cecil adjusts his head on the pillow, and Carlos can see every miniscule stretch of the tendons in his lover’s throat. The intricate anatomy was something that he had always loved about the human body, but there was no one with features like Cecil. Carlos watches as Cecil smoothes his blond hair out of his face and sighs softly, looking him over. Carlos pulls him a tad closer by his waist and Cecil’s eyes widen ever so slightly before he dissolves into a giggle and slings an arm over the Latino.

“You smell like that new shampoo,” Cecil lilts, and he makes a show of nuzzling into the man’s thick locks. Carlos pulls a face and shakes his head, trying not to smile. “Oooo, it’s so warm… just like you …I love it. I’m getting this one again. Is that okay, Carlitosss…?”

Carlos can hear the heaviness in his voice like myrrh, and nods, buried into his uncovered chest. “More that okay, mi amor.” He can feel the ring on Cecil’s finger as he cards through his hair. The ring he picked out… how long ago was it now? Two years now? Two and a few months? Time was strange, in Night Vale. It was better not to worry about the particulars, as much as it was easy to wonder and fret. Carlos moves his hand and wanders it along Cecil’s back, knowing that it wouldn’t take much at all to send the man back to dreaming.

Cecil hums to himself, a few bars of an old bloodstone chant, and murmurs, “You want to hear what’s happening, Carlos…?”

He lets the callused fingers trail along pale skin, “Always.”

There’s a long pause as Cecil settles, his arm still laying across Carlos’s side. Carlos guides the hand to his hip, and Cecil rubs his thumb gently along his deep clay colored skin as the void swirls outside. “There’s wolves on the ridge of the canyon, their maws open like the crevasse itself… teeth like knives, blood howling, howling like the desert wind. Their fur is knotted and snarled, and they do not care.”

Carlos closes his eyes as Cecil continues. Cecil’s late night reports were always fractured, but they were always elegant in a way that he barely understood. They were layered. They spoke for more than what they were.

“John Peters, you know, the farmer, is resting on an old cotton blanket. He does not know where it came from, but it will disappear next Tuesday, and he will miss it dearly.”

The scientist feels himself relaxing, easily giving in to Cecil’s words. His skin is cold to the touch, and Carlos pulls the blanket over his husband’s shoulder. Cecil goes through the town, reporting on everyone. Not everyone in exact, but everyone’s mood, how they felt, the overarchingness of it all. The peacefulness of their slumbers, how they heard nothing but the faint whispers of a melancholy wind. Carlos feels himself sinking deeper and deeper into that voice. Into this reality that exists, but at the same time, seems to be not there at all. “There is a man, a very handsome, smart man, laying in bed with his lover.”

This was Carlos’s favorite part. Cecil always did them last, so it was coming to a close. He didn’t care at this point, he could barely think, as Cecil’s fingernails gently scraped his scalp. “The lover is very lucky. He made the man his husband, his husband forever. And the husband, being the very talented and amazing Carlos, dear listener… is very, very happy.” Cecil draws out the words as Carlos’s breathing steadied, taking on a pulselike calm. He strokes his fingers over the man’s dark cheek and kisses his forehead, “And they loved each other very much… they slept together until the dawn. They lay, intertwined like the roots of the life-tree, their limbs jumbled, breaths mingled... as the sky turned into sherbet…” Cecil yawns, curling around his husband.

Being married wasn’t hard in the least.


End file.
